


The Heat That Keeps Me Warm

by JonsaInTheNorth



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, R plus L equals J, So much angst, salty teens au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8047852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonsaInTheNorth/pseuds/JonsaInTheNorth
Summary: She had not hoped for love from the brooding prince they made her lord husband, but she had at least hoped to love his children.





	The Heat That Keeps Me Warm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darks1st3r](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darks1st3r/gifts).



> Happy, happy (very much belated) birthday! I’m so sorry this is so late -.- This piece took a while longer to write than I expected it to. I finally found an opportunity to write an angsty!teens au and got an idea, but had to do some extra research. I hope you enjoy, though, and that your birthday was A+ phenomenal!

The sharp pain in her lower abdomen does not wake Sansa this time, but the press of the warm, wet blood sticking her nightrail to her legs. Sansa barely contains the shivering sob that escapes her lips.  _Again. It’s happened again_.

A force pulled her awake from her dreams, ripping her away from the visions of dark-haired children running and shouting in the courtyard, and throwing her into this dark, terrible reality where there are no suckling babes or toddling infants. 

 _Why?_  Sansa tries to muffle the noises bubbling in her throat, tries to keep in the tears that pour from her eyes, but it’s no use. The Stranger has claimed his prize.  _Oh my sweet little ones…_

She pulls her legs against her chest and buries her head into the pool of cloth between her knees, not caring if Jon wakes besides her. Her husband has slept through louder storms, she remembers, and the thought makes her body quake harder. She is breaking besides him and still he sleeps on, completely unawares.

This was not a marriage either of them had wanted. He was not the gallant husband she had dreamed of, and she was too much herself to please him. The day her father, Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, told Sansa a Targaryen prince came north to claim her hand, she felt like she flew upon the dragon that would soon be her house sigil. But instead of the musical, knightly Aegon who would someday be king, Jon Targaryen came for her. 

Sullen, brooding Jon, who lacked courtly graces and any ability to dance. It was Jon who spread a Targaryen cloak across her shoulders under the great hearttree of Winterfell, who took her to this keep so far from civilization’s edge. While he could make her tremble beneath his touch in their bed, outside their chambers Jon barely acknowledged her. 

He stared at his plate during most meals, or joked with his steward and castellan. He trained in the yard or rode out to survey their lands. Jon was everything a good lord should be, but outside their bedroom he was a worthless husband.

He stirs besides her now, finally, blinking back the sands of sleep. Confusion contorts his face as he takes in the sobbing wreck of his wife. “Sansa, what is it?”

Tears fall faster now, carrying with them any hopes she had of a kind, soft word from Jon. Emptiness gnaws at her stomach, emptiness where her child should be growing strong.

Jon notices then, the wet spots between their bodes.

“Oh, Sansa, I’m so sorry.” He whispers. Jon reaches to pull her against his broad chest, but she shoves him aside with such a force that he physically recoils.  _How can he be sorry? How can he pretend to care_? 

Jon did not want this baby, or any of the others they have lost. Twice in as many years, Sansa has woken up like this, covered in her child’s blood, the child that she can not carry to term. This one lasted so long, she thought they might make it, had dared to think of names and sewing careful stitches across the edge of a blanket. She had even written a letter to her mother and father and one to the king, but they were letters she would never send, not until she held a babe at her breast.

Sansa leaps from their bed, tossing asides the sheets. She struggles to light the candles around the room, to throw on her robe, anything to keep from looking at his impassive face. She shuffles papers on a table, rearranges a stack of books, but freezes when she sees the vase of wildflowers he brought back for her from his last ride out upon their lands.

She had been the one to say she wanted children, not just an heir but many, to bring warmth to this cold keep they called theirs, perhaps to bring some smiles to her sullen husband’s ever dark face. She’s seen those smiles, sometimes, when he thinks she isn’t watching. After she sews him a new shirt, carefully embroidered with white wolves and white dragons; the day he found kittens in an abandoned farmhouse and she named them all after dragons of old; even sometimes after he has finished inside her, and she has fallen asleep gently against his chest, calmed by the rising and falling of his breath.

“Sansa,” he croaks, rising slowly. “What can I do?”

His voice is soft, almost gentle as it caresses her name. But that doesn’t stop her from shouting through another round of sobs, “Nothing! There’s nothing you can do, nothing you can say, nothing for me, for, for-”

She breaks down more, not comprehending the words he tries to murmur to her. Even if he wanted a child, she cannot give it to him. What a disappointment, an  _embarrassment,_ for Prince Jon Targaryen,that nearly three years of marriage has given rise to nothing between him and his lovely Northern wife, that she cannot melt the ice in her heart to give him a son.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she whimpers as she falls to the floor, rocking herself into a ball, back and forth, back and forth. “I should be a good wife, but I can’t be-”

“Oh, love.”

Jon is at her side, enveloping her in his strong arms and lifting her up. He guides her back to their bed and sets her down. Quickly, he tosses aside the blood stained blanket and tenderly, he pulls her nightrail and robe over her head. 

She shivers as an invisible breeze touches her naked skin, until his discarded shirt from the day before is over her shoulders and across her body. “Jon…”

“I’m right here, love.” Jon’s voice is low, his words soft and slow, as he wipes the stains of dried tears from her cheeks.  “It’s not your fault.”

He cups her face in his hands, those calm grey eyes staring into her soul. “It’s never been your fault, never been anything you’ve done-”

“If I had loved you better, been a better wife-”

“Don’t say those things. Don’t think them.” His grip tightens against her skin, slightly but enough that she can feel it. “You’ve loved me just right, sweetling, like I love you-”

Her gasp interrupts him, and his words send her into another bout of shaking sobs. Not once has he said this to her, confessed any sort of affection for the woman he is bonded to for all their days. And to say it now, like this, under the flickering of so many lit candles, while she wears his shirt and smells of him, with the death of their babe still stained between her thighs- it is all too much to bear.

Jon presses a delicate kiss against her forehead, runs his hands across her head and down the sweat-soaked plait that hangs between her shoulder blades. Quietly, he pulls her against his chest, strokes her face and back with soothing motions, holds her hand and wraps his arms around her form.

Sansa lets the pain out, the fear for what may come next, her longing and her dreams, pours it all out through her tears and her murmured, incoherent jumbles of words. In response, he holds and says promises against her brow, promises she feels he just may try to keep.

Comfort escapes them anywhere but here, in their bed, pressed to one another. But still Jon has brought her happy warmth outside their rooms. He has summoned singers to the keep, even one that stayed for sixth months the year before, to play for her and aid her in her lessons upon the high harp. He always admires her needlework, proudly wears only the clothing she has stitched so carefully for him.

She settles into him, surprising even herself with the ease that the motions come to her as she rolls around to face him and stare at his face. Sansa tries to memorize the contours of his skin, tries to call to mind the look of his rare smiles when they appear upon his face.

“I do love you, you know.” He says, when the candles have gone out and her tears have dried and darkness and quiet rule their chambers. “But I don’t know how to love a woman like you, Sansa. It scares me, the intensity of these emotions. I will do whatever I can to aid you, to bring a child of yours into this world. Upon the morrow, I will write the Citadel and the Sept, my father and all the great healers across the narrow seas.

“Whatever you will have of me, I will do…my heart beats for you, and only you.” He stuns her to silence, more than the times he has tried to dance or make her laugh with sly comments here and there. Her heart races as she thinks of it all: the kittens and the singers, the flowers and the glances. 

“Jon, I-” She sighs, heavy with her sorrow. “I just want to make you smile.”

“You do, everyday, love.” He says, and pushes a piece of the red hair matted to her skin away from her eyes and behind her ear. “You make me want to sing and I can’t carry a tune, but I’d do it for you.”

Sansa can’t bring herself to say the words, not now with so much sadness in this room, but she loves him as well. It is deep and often buried, but he keeps her warm when her body would rather freeze, he brings her to her knees with just one look, he comforts her and shelters her and loves her in his own way. 

 _We are young_. She thinks, blinking away more tears and nestling into him. They have time, to birth their brood, to build their pack. This gentle husband will be a gentle father, and a loving one besides. Time and love will see them through this and any future storm, and until the time comes for her to rise herself again, Sansa will find the strength Jon offers in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out and fangirl about Jonsa and other ASOIAF/GOT goodness with me on [tumblr](http://jonsa-in-the-north.tumblr.com).


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